#Repost@drlindseyfitzharris with @get_repost・・・This is a late medieval urine wheel from 1506. Before stethoscopes and x-rays, a pot of piss was an important diagnostic tool in medicine. To diagnose patients, physicians used the wheel, which typically consisted of 20 different colors. These ranged from "white as well-water" to "ruddy as pure intense gold" and "black as very dark horn.” Physicians also tasted patients’ urine. In 1674, the English physician Thomas Willis described the urine of a diabetic as "wonderfully sweet as if it were imbued with honey or sugar." He also noted that diabetic urine was often the color of honey, something observed by earlier practitioners using the urine wheel. Willis went on to coin the term mellitus (literally honey sweet) in diabetes mellitus, and for a long time, the condition was known as Willis’s Disease. Alongside these practices, uromancy emerged. This was a form of divination in which the practitioner, known as a “piss prophet," read a person's future by reading the bubbles moments after the urine hit the divination bowl. This image is from the @wellcomecollection in London. #FOTD#themoreyouknow#diabetes#historyofmedicine#urinewheel#medievalmedicine#medievalworld#histmed#medicalhistorian#histsci#weirdhistory#TIL

The gravestone of Mary Godfree, a child victim of the Great Plague, 1665. Grave was unearthed during the recent Crossrail excavations under Liverpool Street Station, London. More on the Great Plague, here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/1666-Plague-Hellfire-Rebecca-Rideal/dp/1473623537 (Picture: Crossrail)#GreatPlague#History#HistSci#Medicine

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If all else fails take a sip 😵😷 #Repost@drlindseyfitzharris with @get_repost・・・This is a late medieval urine wheel from 1506. Before stethoscopes and x-rays, a pot of piss was an important diagnostic tool in medicine. To diagnose patients, physicians used the wheel, which typically consisted of 20 different colors. These ranged from "white as well-water" to "ruddy as pure intense gold" and "black as very dark horn.” Physicians also tasted patients’ urine. In 1674, the English physician Thomas Willis described the urine of a diabetic as "wonderfully sweet as if it were imbued with honey or sugar." He also noted that diabetic urine was often the color of honey, something observed by earlier practitioners using the urine wheel. Willis went on to coin the term mellitus (literally honey sweet) in diabetes mellitus, and for a long time, the condition was known as Willis’s Disease. Alongside these practices, uromancy emerged. This was a form of divination in which the practitioner, known as a “piss prophet," read a person's future by reading the bubbles moments after the urine hit the divination bowl. This image is from the @wellcomecollection in London. #FOTD#themoreyouknow#diabetes#historyofmedicine#urinewheel#medievalmedicine#medievalworld#histmed#medicalhistorian#histsci#weirdhistory#TIL

This is a late medieval urine wheel from 1506. Before stethoscopes and x-rays, a pot of piss was an important diagnostic tool in medicine. To diagnose patients, physicians used the wheel, which typically consisted of 20 different colors. These ranged from "white as well-water" to "ruddy as pure intense gold" and "black as very dark horn.” Physicians also tasted patients’ urine. In 1674, the English physician Thomas Willis described the urine of a diabetic as "wonderfully sweet as if it were imbued with honey or sugar." He also noted that diabetic urine was often the color of honey, something observed by earlier practitioners using the urine wheel. Willis went on to coin the term mellitus (literally honey sweet) in diabetes mellitus, and for a long time, the condition was known as Willis’s Disease. Alongside these practices, uromancy emerged. This was a form of divination in which the practitioner, known as a “piss prophet," read a person's future by reading the bubbles moments after the urine hit the divination bowl. This image is from the @wellcomecollection in London. #FOTD#themoreyouknow#diabetes#historyofmedicine#urinewheel#medievalmedicine#medievalworld#histmed#medicalhistorian#histsci#weirdhistory#TIL